American Republic

Are we a nation of ethnic and racial groupings, or are we a nation of individuals, each unique and deserving of equal opportunity unhampered by racial or gender prejudice?
For the first two centuries of our nation’s...

The world has been and will continue to be overwhelmingly traditionally religious, whatever intellectuals like Nietzsche might have expected to the contrary, thus confirming those philosophers who contend that all civilizations must be supported by such moral frameworks...

Immigrants became American, or at least what they thought of as American, because they had no alternative. Educated in the rituals and standards of citizenship, they conformed to the vague but robust doctrine of “Americanism,” and sought, above all, to avoid being “un-American"...
I.

Despite candidate Donald Trump’s explicit promise to appoint justices who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, as president he declared in his introduction of Brett Kavanaugh that, “like Ronald Reagan,” he did not ask potential nominees where they stood on controversial cases...

James Iredell’s careful apologia for the American cause—a teaching which he developed in a series of essays and public letters written from 1773-1778—clearly contains a foreshadowing of what he thought should be in a constitution for the United States...

July 4th has come and gone. So have the accompanying picnics, parades, and fireworks. That includes fireworks of more than one variety. After all, the Fourth of July can also be an occasion for hot debate well before...

Would the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh have a profound impact on the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court? In other words, would his addition to the Court eventually have a broad and historic impact equal to that of Justice...

Self-governance requires that those in positions of authority emphasize the importance of treating the Constitution as a "living document," in that phrase’s best sense—not as a surrender to expediency, but as a recognition that no nation can govern itself that fails to meet the responsibility of perpetually...

The danger today is not that too many are selectively and dishonestly quoting Thomas Aquinas to advance their own political agenda in ways that are unfaithful to his beliefs and intentions. The real point is that Christians have fallen into an appalling habit of censoring the very...

Beginning his joint press conference with Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump declared that U.S. relations with Russia have “never been worse.” He then added pointedly, that just changed “about four hours ago.” It certainly did. With his remarks...

The paradigm motivating Justice Kennedy’s jurisprudence is of an individual who must be protected by the courts from all outside pressures. The result has been increasing hostility toward the fundamental institutions on which our constitutional order relies...

Thomas Jefferson is a kind of incarnate compendium of the Enlightenment. His remarkable openness to its spirit is the philosophical counterpart to his political sensitivity in making himself "a passive auditor of the opinions of others," so as to catch the "harmonizing sentiments of the day" and...

The elites who were in charge when the fire broke out, and who failed to respond and refused even to recognize it, and who now denounce Donald Trump for how he is coping with it, are unlikely to be called upon again to lead this republic...

The Declaration of Independence is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We...

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The conservative is concerned, first of all, with the regeneration of the spirit and character—with the perennial problem of the inner order of the soul, the restoration of the ethical understanding, and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is founded. This is conservatism at its highest. - Russell Kirk